


Nothing to regret

by obsessivewritingdisorder



Category: The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:02:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1838695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivewritingdisorder/pseuds/obsessivewritingdisorder





	1. Chapter 1

What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

I do, Augustus.

I do.

I could never regret time I spent with Augustus Waters. 

Before him, my life was a vast emptiness in which strangers passed through. My world was dull, black and white.

Augustus was technicolour. My life was full. He brought out a person inside me I thought died a long time ago. 

I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper.

Dearest Augustus,

I miss you. Like flowers miss the rain. And it hurts. God, I never expected it to hurt as much as it does. Every breath I take no longer has the weight of my cancer to fight but the weight of my grief for you as well. But I have learnt that you cannot experience great love without experiencing great sadness. I can't regret loving you, Gus, and I still love you with a passion that I hope never fades. And I don't want the pain to fade because I am afraid I'll forget what it was like to love you. 

You made the world a bearable place to be and now that you're gone, I feel the weltschmerz. Everything is dimmer, I only see terrible things happening in the world. Its like the light you brought into the world was suddenly sucked out when you left. 

I miss the sound of your heart beat as I rested my head on you chest. 

I will always love you, Gus. 

Your Hazel

I folded the paper and placed it in an envelope and wiped the tears from my face. I then found Gus' favourite passage in An Imperial Affliction and bookmarked it with the letter.


	2. Endings

I could feel my body becoming weaker. My lungs were sucking at their job even more than they usually do. 

I reread Augustus's letter to Van Houten every day. It gave me strength, even if it only lasted for a while. I couldn't go many places now and I was having weekly hospital visits.

One morning, I went to get out of bed and legs couldn't support me. I fell on the floor with a thud and was winded. 

I tried to yell to Mom, but I could only gasp. I thought to myself, is this how Gus felt when he went to get his cigarettes at the gas station. Alone, scared and knowing that something was desperately wrong. 

I could hear Mom running up the stairs and closed my eyes.

I opened them in a hospital room. I could hear the machines next to me, no doubt responsible for me reopening my eyes in the first place. 

A nurse came in and saw that I awake. I asked her if I could talk to my parents. She nodded and went out to get them. 

Dad had been crying. So had Mom. They told me the cancer had spread from my lungs.

Everywhere. 

The doctor came in and told me that I probably only had a month to live. 

I knew this would happen. My diagnosis had always been terminal. But I was still shocked.

One month. 

One month to say goodbye to everyone I love. One month to plan for the end of my life.

3 days later, they released me from hospital, my parents pushing me out in a wheelchair.


End file.
